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Episode 596: Hall Hypotheticals and Other Luminous Emails
Date January 8, 2015 Summary Ben and Zachary answer emails about Hall of Fame voting, stats in other sports, baseball with no projections, and more (plus a Play Index about plunkings). Topics * Colorado Rockies making the Hall of Fame * Making the Hall of Fame via longevity * Changing the BBWAA electorate * In-game strategy statistics for baseball and other sports * Hit by pitch frequency * Limiting Hall of Fame ballot size and backlog * Hypothetical PED users in Hall of Fame * First basemen defense * Baseball analysis without projections Intro The Apples in Stero, "Winter Must Be Cold" Banter * Zachary is serving as a guest host while Sam is "somewhere in Mexico". * Hall of Fame voting results: Zachary was surprised at the vote percentage difference between Randy Johnson and Pedro Martinez. He and Ben also did not expect Nomar Garciaparra to stay on the ballot. * Hall of Fame voting results: Slight difference in votes for Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds. * Ryan Webb had surgery on his left shoulder. Email Questions * Mikey: "So I know Larry Walker's case for the hall isn't that great and Todd Helton seems like a borderline guy at most, but do you ever see a hitter who spent his most productive seasons in Colorado making the hall on anything but the first ballot, assuming any Jeter-type very obvious Hall of Famer would make it first ballot. Or is the Coors effect barring some type of tectonic shift that neutralizes it enough to always turn maybe into no for most voters. The question could also be reversed and also asked for a pitcher in Colorado." * Andrew: "So let's say you've got a guy who hits .200 with a .550 OPS for his whole career. How long would he have to play and how good a defender would he have to be to make the Hall of Fame?" * Rich: "Who says what do you think the effect would be on Hall of Fame voting if the BBWAA were to lower writer eligibility to something less than ten years, five say, and expand BBWAA membership to all media including the Vin Scully types who are clearly qualified as brighter people than I have said in the past. If you wanted to go further you could remove the lifetime eligibility for voters who fail to demonstrate a meaningful connection or contribution to the sport or some phrasing that is at least as nebulous as the morality cause. If the Baseball Hall of Fame is so stodgy and slow to turn as it seems, why not flood the electorate with the younger generation? Is the BBWAA as difficult to change? Would this just be a temporary fix for a temporary problem that would have irritating consequences when we are old and feeble minded?" * Samuel: "To my knowledge advanced statistics are and have been more ubiquitous in baseball than any other major U.S. sport. I don't know exactly why this is but I would guess that it has to do with the fact that individual player statistics are more meaningful and easier to aggregate than in other sports. Baseball is great for the baseball card collector and for the average fan who likes to talk about their favorite players. However it seems to me that the individualistic nature of baseball stats make them less useful than in other sports where stats might primarily concern in game strategy. Knowing more about players is great for a GM, someone who is constructing a team, but there are so many sources of unanticipated variation between evaluating a player and the actual team performance that their actual impact is limited. On the other hand stats concerning strategy, like what kind of plays to call against a certain defensive alignment in football, would, in my opinion, have a more significant and easily measurable effect than in baseball. In other words, the win probably added by strategy informed by stats would be larger and could be measured with a smaller margin of error than the effect of using stats concerning individual players. There are strategy focused stats in baseball like around lineup construction but I don't think a significant advantage has ever been gained baseball by the use of in game strategy aside from bullpen usage perhaps. Do you agree that stats have the potential to be more useful in other sports than in baseball? And if so why do you think it has taken longer for them to catch on in those other sports?" * Ethan: "Nothing drives me nuttier than the annual brouhaha over the 10 man limited Hall of Fame ballot. No matter what the hall itself says about the rule it is perfectly defensible. By putting limits on the number of players one can vote for the hall is making sure the election means you were one of the best players of your era. Only 12 year old boys and apparently sports writers believe that numbers from one era are magically comparable from those to another. By artificially limited ballot space the hall is ensuring that the elect represent the best of their era. This is such an obvious defense of the practice that I'm baffled by those otherwise intelligent writers who make such a stink about it. So, what gives? Why do writers go to such great lengths to say how pained they are by this limit? My working theory is that by doing so they are thanking former sources whom they're not voting for, that kind of thing. To put it another way the limit ensures that election remains scarce no matter difference between eras. This seems like an undeniably good thing." * Lee: "What do you think would happen if a player already inducted into the Hall of Fame were to announce that he used PEDs? A big part of the reason Bonds and Clemens get so few votes is that voters want to keep the hall clear of PED users. Do you think any voters would change their votes if they knew the hall was already tainted? If Greg Maddux were outed as a PED user what's the point of keeping Bonds out simply because he was outed before he got in? What if dozens of Hall of Famers came forward and said they used PEDs? Would that help Bonds get more votes?" * Keefa: "Is it possible to be horrible and elite as a defensive first baseman at the same time? According to fWAR not a single first baseman has produced positive defensive value at first base over the last two years. Is this indicative of a flaw on how defensive value is assessed at the position or just general proof of poor play on behalf o the league's first basemen. Is it fair to say Mike Napoli, Anthony Rizzo, or now Joe Mauer are now elite first basemen when they are not producing positive defensive value at their position despite, according to this assessment being the best that their is currently. Why are first basemen so terrible?" * Eric: "Would baseball analysis be more or less fun if no reasonable projection systems existed?" Play Index * Zachary tries to find out if Craig Biggio got hit by pitches at an elite rate or was "just a compiler". He was hit by 285 pitches in his career. * Ron Hunt led the league in hit by pitches for seven years in a row. He was hit by 50 pitches in 1971. * There were several other players who were hit by pitches at higher rates than Biggio. Notes * Zachary does think that a Colorado Rockies player could become a non-first ballot Hall of Famer. * Zachary thinks the value of in-game statistics in football is significantly more than in baseball, however baseball's advantage is that there is no play clock. * Craig Biggio has 4 of the top 14 seasons in MLB history for hit by pitches. * Zachary says in most cases the ballot limit is fine but the issue is exacerbated when writers can't also come to a consensus on who the best players of an era were. * Zachary thinks that if a current Hall of Famer came out as a PED user it would likely help Bonds and Clements, but some voters would just stop voting for any player from that era. Links * Effectively Wild Episode 596: Hall Hypotheticals and Other Luminous Emails * An Astro for the Ages by Zachary Levine Category:Email Episodes Category:Episodes Category:Guest Episodes